Sustainability and Citizens

UBC has been invited to participate in the SUCI project initiative. The background is the EU White paper on Governance and the planned 6^th Framework on research. The White paper states: "On the one hand, Europeans wantpolitical leaders to find solutions to the major problems confronting our societies. On the other hand, people increasingly distrust institutions and politics or are simply not interested in them." European democracy and governance need re-thinking. Europe is heading towards a multi-level governance where local, regional, national and supranational institutions all have their part to play. The project will present research in areas of responsibility and governance. The main objective of SUCI is to develop practical tools, results and statements. The results will be of high practical use. SUCI will produce the following deliverables:

• E-Balanced Score Card: to measure and deliver governance information and results and to benchmark and evaluate regions and cities.
• E-governance: new governance tools for the European citizen.
• E-voting: for the modern citizen's democracy.
• E-information: to deliver information and to get feedback from the citizens.
• E-media and information: integrating news from your town, culture, region, etc.
• E-citizen: new forms of citizenship and integration models for Europe on the move.
• E-tools: new tools, not yet invented.

The project deliverables will be reached by research and technological development, innovation related activities, simulation and training. This will be implemented by joint training courses, workshops, electronic communication networks, mobility of staff, joint studies, establishment of shared databases websites.

The management of the SUCI project will be conducted by the ARTI Europe (Associate Research and Technology Implementation), a professional project management group which successfully managed in several FP5 projects. At present 25 research centres and 10 business partners are involved. In addition to that, 20 local authorities from the BSR will be partners and act as "testing grounds".